Images Feelings Memories
by Angel Gidget
Summary: Through the Force, Leia manages to strengthen her memory, and recall a childhood she forced herself to forget.


Author's Notes: It's a between-the-scenes-and-during-them vignette from Liea's POV. Partly inspired by Ferniwerthy's "Father's Heart" series. It also deals with the concept of Liea's Force sensitivity, and the fact that if she was strong enough in the force to sense Luke's cry in "The Emperor Strikes Back", then she was strong enough to sense other things in the Force before that, and suffer for it. Angst and a bit of drama with whips of romance (Han/Liea, Padme/Anakin), what more could you ask for? After all, this is my first Star Wars fanfiction. As you may have guessed, reviews are immensely appreciated.  
  
Disclaimer: Lucas is the big Enchilada, and I don't think that was every in doubt.  
  
Images Feelings Memories  
  
____________________  
  
The words resound in my own head as I say them. "Just images really...feelings." I don't fully understand Luke's question. He's my friend and I love him, but how could he ask me something so personal? He's one of the very few people I could ever tell the answer to, but it still catches me by surprise that he would ask.  
  
"Do you remember your mother--your real mother?...What do you remember?"  
  
With those few words, my mind is launched into another time. It's a time I can hardly remember on a planet that no longer lives. My mind is too shocked to answer, so my heart takes over.  
  
"Do you remember your mother--your real mother?"  
  
"Just a little bit. She died when I was very young."  
  
"What do you remember?"  
  
"Just images really...feelings. She was very beautiful...kind, but...sad. Why are you asking me this?"  
  
The heart stops rambling away my half-forgotten memories and the mind struggles to the foreground.  
  
"I have not memory of my mother. I never knew her."  
  
I feel something then, something I'd felt before.  
  
I remember back to when Alderan was destroyed. Everything in me had cried out in pain and rage, and I could feel the moment being seared into my brain like a firebrand. I was then dragged away to my cell where I replayed the moment over and over. The insane gleam in Tarkin's eyes. Vader's hand solidly placed on my shoulder. The sound of a power source deep inside the station surging to life. The glow of the beam striking the surface of my home. The millions of voices crying out in terror that had suddenly silenced. I heard them die. I felt them die.   
  
It was some sort of additional sense that I didn't know I had. I had discovered it just in time to feel the screams of my people across the vastness of space. They resounded in my mind's eye like an echo and I couldn't bear it. Knowing my family and race was dead? I could stand under that weight. But dying with them, and then still being alive? The only thing that saved me from a complete and total collapse was that a too-short stormtrooper--Luke in disguise--had chosen that moment to come and rescue me.  
  
I spoke of my pain to no one, and locked the screams of my family into the recesses of my mind. I forced myself to forget. Months later, I found myself standing on a ship's deck, staring out into space with tears in my eyes. Luke's arm was around me, comforting me after Han's abduction. It seemed as though after all I'd done to hurt the Empire, it had managed to strike back at me through the man I loved. And just in time for me to realize that I truly did love him.  
  
On my way to my temporary quarters, I passed by the med-droid that had attached Luke's mechanical arm. I had muttered something about going to bed, and the droid turned to me and recommended a small anti-depressant. Something that would work just long enough for me to fall asleep. I wasn't sure if I would really go to sleep or not, but I accepted the thing anyway.  
  
With the grief of losing Han fading into the background of my mind, and the hope of rescuing him lightening my spirits, I began to focus on other things that had happened to me. I was replaying what had happened at Hoth. I was thinking in military terms, thinking how best to avoid the mistakes we had made, and how to avoid Imperial probe droids in the future. I dwelled on impassionate things such as politics and strategy, until I started thinking about Bespin. I tried not to think too much about Han, so I found my thoughts wondering to Luke.  
  
"We have to go back...I know where Luke is...Chewie, just do it!"  
  
I tried to remember what had made me say that. When Lando had finally dragged him into the ship, I could see that Luke was missing a hand. But I wasn't surprised, because I had already known that Luke was missing a hand. I'd felt it. I'd lost it with him, yet still had both of my own. I had died with them and still retained my life.  
  
It was then that the anti-depressant wore off, and I fell. I fell to my knees, sobbing hysterically. I remembered everything. I was being ripped in two by my heart and my mind, yet I couldn't tell which was forcing me to remember and which was struggling to forget. The anguish of sensing their fear and their death was raking a path across my soul. My heart was beating, hoping that their pain would not become my scar.  
  
Luke heard me from down the hall, and entered my room moments later. He pulled me into a gentle hug and held me until my tears subsided. He probably didn't know if my crying was over Han or something else, but he knew it hurt, and didn't ask questions.  
  
But before my collapse, I'd had this terrible Feeling...  
  
My mind leaps to the present. I'm having that Feeling again. It is being triggered by Luke's words.  
  
"I have no memory of my mother. I never knew her."  
  
I'm about to remember something. I'm about to remember something so wondrous and terrible that I couldn't bear it, and made myself forget.  
  
Then he tells me that Vader is his father.  
  
I hear myself incredulously echoing his words as he continues.  
  
"The force is strong in my family. My father has it; I have it..."  
  
He looks into my eyes with an intensity that frightens me.  
  
"...my sister has it."  
  
He tries to explain, but he doesn't have to. I know. I've always known. There is no terror, only wonder, and the faint whisper of a memory. A recollection of blue eyes and a tiny hand holding my equally tiny finger. Feeling warm and safe and loved. Falling asleep to the lullaby of my mother--of our mother.  
  
By the Maker!...Vader is my father!  
  
All of a sudden, my world is crumbling again, and I'm hearing his breathing in my mind, feeling his solid hand on my shoulder. I'm screaming and begging my brother to run away, not to confront that terrible machine, to be safe. Or at least, not to face this alone.  
  
"I wish I could go with you."  
  
"No, you don't."  
  
But I do. At least part of me does. I want to walk right up to the Dark Lord of the Sith himself, and hurt him for ripping both my families away from me. For making my mother sad, for slicing off my brother's hand, for watching my foster parents slaughtered with the rest of the planet. But as quickly as the rage rises, it fades. Luke is saying goodbye...kissing my cheek...leaving.  
  
Han walks in on me. Somehow, he has escaped from Wicket--his Ewok companion who wouldn't let go of his leg. He's here to start a fight. He's got the timing of a clumsy Gungan. I've already tried to fight, and am dying inside because of it. I need to be held. He's confused, since I usually put up a fight with him whether there's reason for it or not. But I've already fought today. Fought to the point of complete exhaustion, and am reeling from shock on top of it.  
  
There's a battle the next day. After much difficulty, we manage to blow our target sky high. I get shot, and Han tends to my wound. Victory is ours, and I feel warm inside. We've won the field, and Han told me mere minutes ago that he loves me. But something else is lighter too. Luke. At that moment, the Deathstar explodes above us. Han's countenance grows concerned.  
  
"I hope Luke wasn't on that thing when it blew."  
  
"He wasn't. I can feel it."  
  
He misreads my comment, and I inform him that Luke is my brother. I find myself amused by the way Han's mouth hangs open. I decide to close it the best way I know how: by kissing it.  
  
Night falls, and Luke returns. He's brought the body with him. I know what I felt. Luke couldn't save him from death, but he saved him from himself. The man didn't die as Darth Vader, he died as Anakin Skywalker--he died as our father. In this moment, I understand why General Kenobi saw them as two people: you have become a different person to join the Dark Side. I'm thankful Anakin didn't remain that person.   
  
I can see my newly re-discovered brother in the distance, burning the corpse, watching some of the ashes rise into the wind. He joins the celebration eventually, and he smiles. The next day, we return to the rebel base.  
  
I return to my own room, and I sit in front of my mirror.  
  
"Just images really...feelings."  
  
But the images aren't just images anymore. The force is strong in my family. I have it, as does my brother. It allows images to solidify into memory. I can clearly see her face. Her eyes are a warm, deep brown, same as her hair. Her face is not as angular as my own, but more rounded like Luke's. She's tickling my five-year-old self, chasing me around the room. In my haste, I knock over the make up on her dresser. White powder spills out onto the floor.  
  
She's not angry, just annoyed, and even that doesn't last long. She picks up what is left in the container and calls me to sit in the chair before her. It's rather high up, so she helps me into it. She takes a puff-ball from inside the container and places it in my hand. She taps her finger on her cheek. I do as she indicates, and fluff the white substance onto her entire face. She closes her eyes until the dust settles, and then grins. She gently laughs as I do the same thing to myself. Her laughter fades, and her face turns wistful and meloncholy. She's no longer here, she's lost in a daydream again.  
  
"What y'thinking about?" I ask.  
  
"Ani."  
  
It's nearly a sigh rather than a word, but it proves enough to wake her from trance. If she wants to show me something, she'd best do it soon. I'm only five, and lose interest quickly.  
  
"Let's paint our faces, shall we?"  
  
She removes the red lip-rouge from it's case, and shows me a design I've never seen before: two equally balanced spots upon her cheeks, her top lip painted over, and a single line over the bottom one. The scar of remembrance. She tucks her flowing hair behind her ears, and sits in a rigidly straight position. With her head held high, she looks like a queen.  
  
The thought makes me giggle, and I paint my own face over in the same manner. I can feel her eyes on me. She is looking at me in such a way that she may remember every detail of what I look like, as though she is saving the image for a time when she will not be permitted to see me. The look is gone, and she smiles, turning me to face the mirror. She leans her head down next to mine, so our faces are side by side.  
  
"Pretty." says my child self.  
  
"Naboo." says my adult mind.  
  
She was a queen of Naboo, beautiful and sad, who had loved a Jedi Knight named Anakin Skywalker. She called him Ani, and loved what she had lost with all her heart.  
  
Almost in a trance, I find my hand moving to the drawer below my mirror. White powder, red rouge. I cover my face with a mask of white, and balance it with two red spots on either side. My top lip goes red, and the bottom becomes wounded. Gazing into the mirror once more, I can almost see her again, using my own face.  
  
I don't remove the make up. Rather, I stand and head out the door. I don't care if others see me, but there's one person who should know why I'm wearing this, and why we look the way we do. My brother has no memory of our mother. I am prepared to change that. I have images and feelings to help me, but what is more, I have memories. 


End file.
